By all accounts, income inequality in Egypt is low and had been declining during the decade that preceded the 2011 revolution. As the Egyptian revolution was partly motivated by claims of social injustice and inequalities, this seems at odds with a low level of income inequality. Moreover, while...

Incomes in surveys suffer from various measurement problems, most notably in the tails of their distributions. We study the prevalence of negative and zero incomes, and their implications for inequality and poverty measurement relying on 57 harmonized surveys covering 12 countries over the...

The paper discusses the main issues related to negative and zero incomes that are relevant for the measurement of poverty. It shows the prevalence of non-positive incomes in high- and middle-income countries, provides an analysis of the sources and structure of these incomes, outlines the...

It is sometimes observed and frequently assumed that top incomes in household surveys worldwide are poorly measured and that this problem biases the measurement of income inequality. This paper tests this assumption and compares the performance of reweighting and replacing methods designed to...

The paper re-estimates the Gini inequality index for the United States using the Current Population Survey between 1979 and 2014 and two alternative correction methods for top income biases. Top incomes in household surveys are affected by a variety of biases related to survey design, income...

This study exploits unprecedented access to income data and a combination of newly developed statistical methods to evaluate income inequality in Egypt and test for potential top incomes biases. Income inequality in Egypt is found to be low by regional and world standards; top incomes are found...